Advertising guru has little time for tech giants’ excuses on extremist content

In a family full of successful authors, Johnny Hornby’s story is one of advertising industry successben gurr for the times

Johnny Hornby saw nothing remotely satisfying when Unilever threatened this week to withdraw ads from Google and Facebook unless they properly policed extremist content on their platforms. The ad industry chief had been warning of just such a boycott for years, but didn’t see this as a “told you so” moment. There’s too much at stake.

It has been, the founder of The&Partnership argues, something akin to “the wild west with YouTube [owned by Google] and Facebook. If they are going to take people’s advertising money, it’s their duty to ensure that their media inventory is safe.”

In the old media world, if somebody had sprayed swastikas on one of his posters, he would have had it down within the hour. So why can’t digital…

Want to read more?

Subscribe now and get unlimited digital access on web and our smartphone and tablet apps, free for your first month.